GOP howls as Dems move to ram budget through

GOP howls as Dems move to ram budget through

June 15th, 2012, 8:06 am ? ? posted by Chris Knap, Editor, Government, Politics and Investigations

As we told you on this blog earlier this week state legislators need to send a budget to the governor by midnight tonight or they lose their paychecks.? Doesn?t have to be a good one, a balanced one, even one that Gov. Jerry Brown approves, just a budget, any budget.? And with the new voter-approved law eliminating the 2/3 majority rule the Republican minority in the Legislature has very little leverage.

Senate Republican lawmakers issued a howl of protest about this process late this week, complaining that the Democrats were conducting budget negotiations in secret and not even showing budget related bills to the GOP until it was too late to analyze them.

?We have made repeated requests for an honest and open budgetary process and for the budget measures to be in print for 48-hours, to allow public review.? We can?t in good conscience vote for bills we have not seen,? Senator Bill Emmerson (R-Riverside) said in an email blast late Wednesday.

Sen. Bill Emmerson (right)

Added Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar). ?Budgets thrown together in the middle of the night are one of the main reasons why California is facing deficits today.?? See their letter to Senate leader Darrell Steinberg here.

Democrats in the state Legislature held committee hearings on the budget bills Thursday and Steinberg said the Legislature plans to vote today on the main budget bill and on the related bills with which the governor agrees.? There is still quite a bit of disagreement over the details.? Democrats have been suggesting that they are not going to give Gov. Brown all the cuts to social welfare programs that he has proposed, instead chopping his reserve fund to $1 billion, and recalculating complex funding formulas in order to pull $330 million from public schools and $250 million from county governments.

So far they are OK with his 5 percent cut to state worker pay and an overhaul of the health care plan for low-income Medi-Cal patients.

Virtually every Democrat in the state Capitol is also counting on voters approving a ballot measure in November that boosts sales taxes for everyone and income taxes for the rich.

That measure, pushed by Brown, the state teacher?s union, and state Democrats,? would raise an estimated $6.8 billion according to the non-partisan Legislative Analysts Office.? But its approval by voters is far from assured.? A Field Poll released Sunday found support at 52 percent, which analysts said is likely to creep below a majority long before the November election.

Keep an eye on this blog for further updates as the budget moves through the process.

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